


Allowing the Possibility of Mary and Baby

by SweetLateJuliet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 08:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1219012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetLateJuliet/pseuds/SweetLateJuliet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To get John back to 221B, Mary and baby must die or disappear… right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Allowing the Possibility of Mary and Baby

**Johnlock was my idea.**

Not my unique, original idea, of course. But I didn’t borrow it from someone else.

I first watched  _Sherlock_ well after S2 originally aired. Afterwards I thought, “Those two really seem like they could be together, I wonder if anyone else has thought of that!” (Ha.)

So I went looking for fanfiction. I read and read, and eventually started writing and participating, and it’s been great.

But.

Although in the last year I’ve spent countless hours and thousands of words on the love between John and Sherlock  _based on the feelings I got from the show_ before I even dipped a toe into this fandom, **I never believed that the show might reify those feelings until I read[loudest-subtext-in-television](http://tmblr.co/mq2kKq0covyqPKgID0Chnog)’s first “Operation Johnlock” post.**

In my corner of fandom, at least, it was Common Knowledge that “they’d never go there.” Despite the more-than-friends love that I could  _see_ even through whatever straight, heteronormative blinders I have*, I didn’t entertain the possibility that John and Sherlock would get together onscreen. That brave, beautiful, culturally subversive work was for fandom to do. I mean, the showrunners and actors dismissed the possibility out of hand! Despite, you know, continuing to build the love onscreen. No homo. (*Blinders: I’m working on ‘em. Y’all make me a better person.)

So LSIT totally rocked my world when I suddenly realized that yes, Johnlock very much  _could_ become canon. It took someone saying “You can believe your eyes, and here’s why” for me to allow the possibility instead of accepting the “truth universally acknowledged.”

**Now let’s talk about Mary.**

**She** **_has_ to leave or die, right?** And the baby almost certainly has to go with her, poor thing, evil-or-sloppy showrunners. I mean, Mary didn’t play a big role in ACD canon, and there was certainly no baby Watson. How else is John going to get back to where he belongs, living at 221B and solving cases with Sherlock? He’s not likely to just abandon wife and child for Sherlock if he hasn’t done so by this point; therefore, Mary and baby have to go.

I’m being facetious, of course.  _Sherlock_ routinely makes a collage of ACD canon, preserving an impression or storyline while totally rearranging who did what and why. (Mini examination of this [here](http://sweetlatejuliet.tumblr.com/post/76747773634/marys-twisted-lip) for “Rache,” Stapleton/Frankland, and Jonathan Small.)  **The fact that Mary Watson didn’t stick around in ACD doesn’t mean she can’t stay now. Same thing for this new baby Watson.** It’s  _not_ a given that they have to die or leave.

**Which could be great.** Because I  _loved_ the Mary I saw in TEH and TSoT, and I’m  _totally on board_ with not killing babies or giving them a tragic start in life.

To be clear: Johnlock is my OTP. I don’t love Mary being a barrier to John and Sherlock getting together. I didn’t love seeing John repeatedly swallow his feelings for Sherlock in S3. I was shocked, confused, and hurt by Mary’s secrets and actions in HLV. I found it hard to imagine adding a baby to  _Sherlock_.

**But the goofy, pragmatic, clever, generous, unflappable Mary who welcomed His Nibs into her life without a shred of jealousy? I loved her.** I loved her happily sassing John about being the best thing that’d happened to him; that’s how I tease my own dear one. (I was still sad for John in that moment, thinking Mary was the best thing  _given the circumstances_.) I loved Mary conspiring individually with the boys to send them off on a case. I loved that she thought dark!John with his tyre lever was “a tiny bit sexy” just like I did, even if that’s maybe a bit not good. She was a radiant bride with the silliest, most endearing expressions.

So I would be very happy to learn that Mary’s reason for shooting Sherlock was not cold self-interest and a twisted, possessive love, but something else we don’t yet understand. What if it’s something Sherlock and John can forgive, even identify with?

**If Mary lives and _can be redeemed_ , but she’s simply not the right partner for John, doesn’t that make John _choosing_ Sherlock more realistic and meaningful?** If  _you_ realize you’ve committed to the “wrong” person, you’re almost certainly going to have to be brave enough to upend your life and your partner’s to fix that. Mr or Ms Not-Right-Anymore is highly unlikely to die to let you off that hook. (They might leave if you make things miserable enough, but that’s not kind to either of you.)

If John goes to Sherlock after Mary and baby die/leave, we’ll never know if he would have chosen Sherlock above all others. Is Sherlock his second choice? A rebound relationship? A coping strategy for this latest awful grief? That’s not the ideal time to choose a partner. (Somebody posted a really nice opinion about giving John this meaningful choice and sparing him the trauma; if you have that link, please send it so I can acknowledge it!)

**What about the baby, then?** I invoke the choices-after-trauma argument again to suggest she’s not going to die. My gut feeling is that Mary isn’t currently mama-material and she’s not going to insist on suburban family life or single motherhood. If she can’t or won’t parent the child, I don’t see John agreeing to an extra-familial adoption. I briefly considered the heroic arrival of now-sober Harry Watson who wants a baby of her own, but… eh, seems like cheap storytelling. So, imagine that Mary and John mutually, rationally, and lovingly choose to separate and have John be the primary parent. Now if he gets together with Sherlock, there’s a baby coming to Baker Street. (Fic imitating fic ad infinitum…) Could you handle it?

Imagine Johnlock becomes canon, and even that their relationship becomes socially actualized with a marriage like LSIT and others have suggested. What then? Would you reject the idea of Sherlock and John  _ever_ having children because it would change their dynamic and “destroy” the show?

I’m using my best Moriarty voice here: That’s what people DO! They choose to have children, and their lives change, and many of them wouldn’t give it up for the world, in spite of all the sacrifice and challenge of parenting.

(Things I’m not saying: I’m in no way implying that children are the necessary result of every loving and committed relationship. Not everyone who has children would do it again if they had the choice over. Saying you’d make a different choice is not wrong or shameful.)

**If Sherlock and John decide they want children, that they’re up for the challenge _even though_ it will totally change their lives, wouldn’t you want that for them too?**

Sherlock and Archie made me smile so hard, so there’s some indication a kid wouldn’t be an unmitigated disaster on the show. (I know, a baby’s different. Still.) If TPTB not only got John and Sherlock together, but went so far as to show them having a family with children if they (John and Sherlock) choose it - isn’t that a valid, courageous, and lovely message just like canonical Johnlock? Go big or go home, maybe? Perhaps they even adopt a dog for Sherlock.

We already “know” that TPTB don’t want to do this show indefinitely in its current format. Five series are planned, and then they hope to do periodic check-ins with the boys of Baker Street on into their old age. (Always take a great big grain of salt with their assertions about the future of the show. I think they’re telling the truth on this one; YMMV.) I don’t think children and all the change they bring are impossible in this structure, or that they’d necessarily be a terrible direction for the show.

If John and Sherlock end up together, could you allow the possibility of Mary and baby staying around in some capacity too? Would you spare John the heartache?

**If you could have your Johnlock cake and eat it too, with a redeemed Mary and a non-tragic life for her unborn child, would you?**

**I would. I so would. I would have a cake-eating party and invite Mycroft.**

_I like her. (That’s not what people normally say.)_


End file.
